
RonV ■ 

COFmiCHT D&POSm 



Making the House 
a Home 




E d s a r A . Guest 



Making the House 
a Home 



By A, 

Edgar Ai^ Guest 

Author of 
"A Heap o' Livin'," ''When Day Is Done" 
"The Path to Home," "Just Folks," Etc. 




Chicago 
The Reilly & Lee Co. 



Printed in the XJ. S. A. 



\ 



Copyright, 19 2 2 
The R eill V d Lee Co 



All Rights Reserved 



Copyrlg-ht 1922, by 

The Crowell Publishing Company 

Republished by special arrangement with 

The American Magazine 



m I5IS22 
g)CI.A674091 

*Vn3 I 



Here's our story, page by page, 
Happy youth and middle-age, 
Smile and tear-drop, weal and woe 
Such as all who live must know — 
Here it is all zm'itten down. 
Not for glory or renozvn. 
But the hope when tve a^e gone 
Those zvlio bravely follow on 
Meeting care and pain and grief 
Will not falter in belief. 



Making the House 
a Home 

WE HAVE BEEN building 
a home for the last fifteen 
years, but it begins to look 
now as though it will not be finished 
for many years to come. This is not 
because the contractors are slow, or 
the materials scarce, or because we 
keep changing our minds. Rather it 
is because it takes years to build a 
home, whereas a house can be builded 
in a few months. 

Mother and I started this home- 
building job on June 28th, 1906. 
I was twenty-five years of age; and 
she — well, it is sufficient for the pur- 
poses of this record to say that she 



6 Making the 

was a few years younger. I was just 
closing my career as police reporter 
for the Detroit 'Tree Press," when 
we were married. Up to a few months 
before our wedding, my hours had 
been from three o'clock, in the after- 
noon, until three o'clock in the morn- 
ing, every day of the week except Fri- 
day. Those are not fit hours for a 
married man — especially a young 
married man. So it was fortunate for 
me that my managing editor thought 
I might have possibilities as a special 
writer, and relieved me from night 
duty. 

It was then we began to plan the 
home we should build. It was to be 
a hall of contentment and the abiding 
place of joy and beauty. And it was 
all going to be done on the splendid 



House a Home 



salary of twenty-eight dollars a week. 
That sum doesn't sound like much 
now, but to us, in January, 1906, it 
was independence. The foundation 
of our first home was something less 
than five hundred dollars, out of 
which was also to come the extrava- 
gance of a two-weeks' honeymoon 
trip. 

Fortunately for all of us, life does 
not break its sad news in advance. 
Dreams are free, and in their flights 
of fancy young folks may be as ex- 
travagant as they wish. There may be 
breakers ahead, and trials, days of 
discouragement and despair, but life 
tells us nothing of them to spoil our 
dreaming. 

We knew the sort of home we 
wanted, but we were willing to begin 



8 Making the 

humbly. This was not because we 
were averse to starting at the top. 
Both Mother and I had then, and 
have now, a fondness for the best 
things of life. We should have liked 
a grand piano, and a self-making ice 
box, and a servant, and an automo- 
bile right off I But less than five hun- 
dred dollars capital and twenty- 
eight dollars a week salary do not 
provide those things. 

What we could have would be a 
comfortable flat, and some nice fur- 
niture. We'd pay cash for all we 
could, and buy the remainder of the 
necessary things on time. We had 
found a wonderful, brand-new flat 
which we could rent for twenty-five 
dollars a month. It had hardwood 
floors, steam heat, two big bedrooms, 



House a Home 



a fine living room with a gas grate, 
a hot-water heater for the bath, and 
everything modern and convenient. 
Today the landlord would ask ninety 
dollars a month for that place and 
tell you he was losing money at that. 
With the rent paid, we should have 
eighty-seven dollars a month left to 
live on. The grocery bill, at that 
time, would not run more than 
twenty dollars a month; telephone, 
gas, and electric light would not ex- 
ceed ten dollars a month; the milk- 
man and the paper boy would take 
but little, and in winter time a ton 
of coal per month would be sufficient. 
Oh, we should have plenty of money, 
and could easily afford to pledge 
twenty dollars a month to pay for 
necessary furniture. 



10 Making the 

It will be noticed that into our 
dreaming came no physician, no den- 
tist, no expenses bobbing up from un- 
expected sources. Not a single bill 
collector called at the front door of 
our dream castle to ask for money 
which we did not have. 

If older and wiser heads suggested 
the possibility of danger, we pro- 
duced our plans on paper, and asked 
them from whence could trouble 
come? To-day we understand the 
depth of the kindly smile which our 
protests always evoked. They were 
letting the dreamers dream. 

At last the furniture was bought on 
the installment plan and the new flat 
was being put in order. It called for 
a few more pieces of furniture than 
we had figured on, and the debt, in 



House a Home 11 

consequence, was greater; but that 
meant merely a few months more to 
make payments. 

It was fine furniture, too ! Of course 
it has long since ceased to serve us; 
but never in this world shall that 
dining set be duplicated ! For perfec- 
tion of finish and loveliness of design, 
that first oak dining table will linger 
in our memories for life. The one we 
now have cost more than all the 
money we spent for all the furniture 
with which we began housekeeping; 
and yet, figuring according to the joy 
it has brought to us, it is poor in com- 
parison. 

And so it was, too, with the mahog- 
any settee, upholstered in green 
plush, and the beveled glass dresser, 
and the living-room chairs. We used 



12 Making the 

to make evening trips over to that 
flat merely for the joy of admiring 
these things — our things; the first we 
had ever possessed. 

Then came the night of June 27th. 
We had both looked forward to that 
wonderful honeymoon trip up the 
lakes to Mackinac Island, and to- 
morrow we were to start. But right 
then I am sure that both Mother and 
I wished we might call it off. It 
seemed so foolish to go away from 
such a beautiful flat and such lovely 
furniture. 

The honeymoon trip lasted two 
weeks; and one day, at Mackinac 
Island, I found Mother in tears. 

" What the matter? " I asked. 

" I want to go home ! '' she said. " I 
know I am silly and foolish, but I 



House a Home 13 

want to get back to our own house 
and our own furniture, and arrange 
our wedding presents, and hang the 
curtains, and put that set of Havi- 
land china in the cabinet! " 

So back we came to begin our home- 
building in earnest. 

nnHE RENT and the furniture in- 
stallments came due regularly, 
just as we had expected. So did the 
gas and electric light and telephone 
bills. But, somehow or other, our 
dream figures and the actual realities 
did not balance. There never was a 
month when there was as much left 
of our eighty-seven dollars as we had 
figured there should have been. 

For one thing, I was taken ill. That 
brought the doctor into the house; 



14 Making the 

and since then we have always had 
him to reckon with and to settle with. 
Then there was an insurance policy 
to keep up. In our dream days, the 
possibility of my dying sometime had 
never entered our heads; but now it 
was an awful reality. And that quar- 
terly premium developed a distress- 
ing habit of falling due at the most 
inopportune times. Just when we 
thought we should have at least 
twenty dollars for ourselves, in 
would come the little yellow slip in- 
forming us that the thirty days' grace 
expired on the jfifth. 

But the home-of-our-own was still 
in our dreams. We were happy, but 
we were going to be still happier. If 
ever we could get rid of those furni- 



House a Home 15 

ture installments we could start sav- 
ing for the kind of home we wanted. 

Then, one evening, Mother whis- 
pered the happiest message a wife 
ever tells a husband. We were no 
longer to live merely for ourselves; 
there was to be another soon, who 
should bind us closer together and fill 
our lives with gladness. 

But — and many a night we sat 
for hours and planned and talked and 
wondered — how were we to meet 
the expense? There was nothing in 
the savings bank, and much was 
needed there. Mother had cherished 
for years her ideas for her baby's out- 
fit. They would cost money; and I 
would be no miserly father, either! 
My child should have the best of 



16 Making the 

everything, somehow. It was up to 
me to get it, somehow, to. . . . If only 
that furniture were paid for! 

Then a curious event occurred. I 
owed little bills amounting to about 
twenty-one dollars. This sum includ- 
ed the gas, electric light, and tele- 
phone bills, on which an added sum 
was charged if unpaid before the 
tenth of the month. I had no monev 
to m.eet them. I was worried and dis- 
couraged. To borrow that sum would 
have been easy, but to pay it back 
would have been difficult. 

That very morning, into the office 
came the press agent of a local the- 
atre, accompanied by Mr. Henry 
Dixey, the well-known actor. Mr. 
Dixey wanted two lyrics for songs. 
He had the ideas which he wished 



House a Home 17 

expressed in rhyme, and wondered 
whether or not I would attempt them. 
I. promised him that I would, and on 
the spot he handed me twenty-five 
dollars in cash to bind the bargain. If 
those songs proved successful I should 
have more. 

The way out had been provided! 
From Mr. Dixey's point of view, 
those songs were not a success; but 
from mine they were, for they bridged 
me over a chasm I had thought I 
could not leap. I never heard from 
that pair of songs afterward; but nei- 
ther Mother nor I will ever forget the 
day they were written. 

It meant more than the mere paying 
of bills, too. It taught us to have 
faith — faith in ourselves and faith in 
the future. There is always a way out 



18 Making the 

of the difficulties. Even though we 
cannot see or guess what that way is 
to be, it will be provided. Since then 
we have gone together through many 
dark days and cruel hurts and bitter 
disappointments, but always to come 
out stronger for the test. 

'P HE NEXT few months were de- 
voted to preparations for the baby, 
and our financial reckonings had to 
be readjusted. I had to find ways of 
making a little more money. I was 
not after much money, but I must 
have more. All I had to sell was what 
I could write. Where was a quick 
market for a poor newspaper man's 
wares ? 

My experience with Mr. Dixey 
turned me to the vaudeville stage. 



House a Home 19 

I could write playlets, I thought. So 
while Mother was busy sewing at 
nights I devoted myself to writing. 
And at last the first sketch was fin- 
ished. At the Temple Theatre that 
week v/as the popular character actor, 
William H. Thompson. To him I 
showed the manuscript of the sketch, 
which was called '' The Match- 
maker." Mr. Thompson took it on 
Tuesday; and on Friday he sent word 
that he wished to see me. Into his 
dressing-room I went, almost afraid 
to face him. 

" It's a bully little sketch," said he, 
as I sat on his trunk, '' and I'd like to 
buy it from you. I can't pay as much 
as I should like; but if you care to let 
me have it I'll give you two hundred 
and fifty dollars — one hundred and 



20 Makifig the 

fifty dollars now, and the remaining 
hundred next week." 

I tried to appear indifferent, but 
the heart of me was almost bursting 
with excitement. It meant that the 
furniture bill was as good as paid! 
And there would be money in the 
bank for the first time since we were 
married! The deal was made, and I 
left the theatre with the largest sum 
of money I had ever made all at once. 
Later someone said to me that I was 
foolish to sell that sketch outright for 
so little money. 

'^ Foolish!" said I. "That two 
hundred and fifty dollars looked big- 
ger to me than the promise of a thou- 
sand some day in the future! " 

Once more the way out had been 
provided. 



House a Home 21 

And then came the baby — a glori- 
ous little girl — and the home had 
begun to be worth-while. There was 
a new charm to the walls and halls. 
The oak table and the green plush 
settee took on a new glory. 

I was the usual proud father, with 
added variations of my own. One of 
my pet illusions was that none, save 
Mother and me, was to be trusted to 
hold our little one. When others 
would take her, I stood guard to catch 
her if in some careless moment they 
should let her fall. 

As she grew older, my collars be- 
came finger-marked where her little 
hands had touched them. We had pic- 
tures on our walls, of course, and trin- 
kets on the mantelpiece, and a large 
glass mirror which had been one of 



22 Making the 

our wedding gifts. These things had 
become commonplace to us — until 
the baby began to notice them ! Night 
after night, I would take her in my 
arms and show her the sheep in one of 
the pictures, and talk to her about 
them, and she would coo delightedly. 
The trinkets on the mantelpiece be- 
came dearer to us because she loved 
to handle them. The home was being 
sanctified by her presence. We had 
come into a new realm of happiness. 
But a home cannot be builded al- 
ways on happiness. We were to learn 
that through bitter experience. We 
had seen white crepe on other doors, 
without ever thinking that some day 
it might flutter on our own. We had 
witnessed sorrow, but had never suf- 
fered it. Our home had welcomed 



House a Home 23 

manj^ a gay and smiling visitor; but 
there was a grim and sinister one to 
come, against whom no door can be 
barred. 

A FTER THIRTEEN months of 
perfect happiness, its planning 
and dreaming, the baby was taken 
from us. 

The blow fell without warning. I 
left home that morning, with Mother 
and the baby waving their usual fare- 
wells to me from the window. Early 
that afternoon, contrary to my usual 
custom, I decided to go hom.e in ad- 
vance of my regular time. I had no 
reason for doing this, aside from a 
strange unwillingness to continue at 
work. I recalled later that I cleaned 
up my desk and put away a number 



24 Making the 

of things, as though I were going 
away for some time. I never before 
had done that, and nothing had oc- 
curred which might make me think 
I should not be back at my desk as 
usual. 

When I reached home the baby was 
suffering from a slight fever, and 
Mother alreadv had called the doctor 
in. He diagnosed it as only a slight 
disturbance. During dinner, I thought 
baby's breathing was not as regular 
as it should be, and I summoned the 
doctor immediately. Her condition 
grew rapidly worse, and a second 
physician was called; but it was not 
in human skill to save her. At eleven 
o'clock that night she was taken 
from us. 

It is needless to dwell here upon 



House a Home 25 

the agony of that first dark time 
through which we passed. That such 
a blow could leave loveliness in its 
path, and add a touch of beauty to 
our dwelling place, seemed unbeliev- 
able at the time. Yet to-day our first 
baby still lives with us, as wonderful 
as she was in those glad thirteen 
months. She has not grown older, as 
have we, but smiles that same sweet 
baby smile of hers upon us as of old. 
We can talk of her now bravely and 
proudly; and we have come to under- 
stand that it was a privilege to have 
had her, even for those brief thirteen 
months. 

To have joys in common is the 
dream of man and wife. We had sup- 
posed that love was based on mutual 
happiness. And Mother and I had 



26 Making the 

been happy together; we had been 
walking arm in arm under blue skies, 
and we knew how much we meant to 
each other. But just how much we 
needed each other neither of us really 
knew — until we had to share a com- 
mon sorrow. 

To be partners in a sacred memory 
is a divine bond. To be partners in a 
little mound, in one of God's silent 
gardens, is the closest relationship 
which man and woman can know on 
this earth. Our lives had been happy 
before; now they had been made 
beautiful. 

So it was with the home. It began 
to mean more to us, as we began each 
to mean more to the other. The bed- 
room in which our baby fell asleep 
seemed glorified. Of course there 



House a Home 27 

were the lonely days and weeks and 
months when everything we touched 
or saw brought back the memory of 
her. I came home many an evening 
to find on Mother's face the mark of 
tears; and I knew she had been living 
over by herself the sorrow of it all. 

I learned how much braver the 
woman has to be than the man. I 
could go into town, where there was 
the contagion of good cheer; and 
where my work absorbed my thoughts 
and helped to shut out grief. But 
not so with Mother! She must live 
day by day and hour by hour amid 
the scenes of her anguish. No matter 
where she turned, something re- 
minded her of the joy we had known 
and lost. Even the striking clock 
called back to her mind the hour 



28 Making the 

when something should have been 
done for the baby. 

'* I must have another little girl," 
she sobbed night after night. '1 must 
have another little girl I " 

And once more the way out was 
provided. We heard of a little girl 
who was to be put out for adoption; 
she was of good but unfortunate 
parents. We proposed to adopt her. 

I have heard many arguments 
against adopting children, but I have 
never heard a good one. Even the in- 
fant doomed to die could enrich, if 
only for a few weeks, the lives of a 
childless couple, and they would be 
happier for the rest of their days in 
the knowledge that they had tried to 
do something worthy in this world 



House a Home 29 

and had made comfortable the brief 
life of a little one. 



a 



WHAT IF THE child should 
turn out wrong? " I hear often 
from the lips of men and women. 

" What of that? " I reply. " You 
can at least be happy in the thought 
that you have tried to do something 
for another." 

To childless couples everywhere I 
would say with all the force I can em- 
ploy, adopt a baby! If you would 
make glorious the home you are build- 
ing; if you would fill its rooms with 
laughter and contentment; if you 
would make your house more than a 
place in which to eat and sleep; if 
you would fill it with happy memo- 



30 Making the 

ries and come yourselves into a closer 
and more perfect union, adopt a 
baby! Then, in a year or two, adopt 
another. He who spends money on a 
little child is investing it to real pur- 
pose; and the dividends it pays in 
pride and happiness and contentment 
are beyond computation. 

Marjorie came to us when she was 
three years old. She bubbled over 
with mirth and laughter and soothed 
the ache in our hearts. She filled the 
little niches and corners of our lives 
with her sweetness, and became not 
only ours in name, but ours also in 
love and its actualities. 

There were those who suggested 
that we were too young to adopt a 
child. They told us that the other 
children would undoubtedly be sent 



House a Home 31 

to us as time went on. I have neither 
the space here nor the inclination to 
list the imaginary difficulties outlined 
to us as the possibilities of adoption. 

But Mother and I talked it all over 
one evening. And we decided that 
we needed Marjorie, and Marjorie 
needed us. As to the financial side 
of the question, I smiled. 

" I never heard of anyone going to 
the poorhouse, or into bankruptcy," 
I said, '' because of the money spent 
on a child. I fancy I can pay the bills." 

That settled it. The next evening 
when I came home, down the stair- 
way leading to our flat came the cry, 
"Hello, Daddy!" from one of the 
sweetest little faces I have ever seen. 
And from that day, until God needed 
her more and called her home, that 



32 Making the 

" Hello, Daddy " greeted me and 
made every care worth while. 

The little home had begun to grow 
in beauty once more. That first shop- 
ping tour for Marjorie stands out as 
an epoch in our lives. I am not of the 
right, sex to describe it. Marjorie 
came to us with only such clothing as 
a poor mother could provide. She 
must be outfitted anew from head to 
toe, and she was. The next evening, 
when she greeted me, she was the 
proud possessor of rrore lovely things 
than she had ever known before. But, 
beautiful as the little face appeared 
to me then, more beautiful was the 
look in Mother's face. There had 
come into her eyes a look of happi- 
ness which had been absent for many 
months. I learned then, and I state 



House a Home 33 

it now as a positive fact, that a 
woman's greatest happiness comes 
from dressing a little girl. Mothers 
may like pretty clothes for them- 
selves; but to put pretty things on a 
little girl is an infinitely greater 
pleasure. More than once Mother 
went down-town for something for 
herself — only to return without it, 
but with something for Marjorie! 

^E PLEDGED to ourselves at 
the very beginning that we 
would make Marjorie ours; not only 
to ourselves but to others. Our 
friends were asked never to refer in 
her presence to the fact that she was 
adopted. As far as we were concerned 
it was dismissed from our minds. She 
was three years old when she was 



34 Making the 

born to us, and from then on we were 
her father and her mother. To many 
who knew her and loved her, this arti- 
cle will be the first intimation they 
ever have received that Majorie was 
not our own flesh and blood. It was 
her pride and boast that she was like 
her mother, but had her father's eyes. 
Both her mother and I have smiled 
hundreds of times, as people meeting 
her for the first time would say, 
"Anyone would know she belonged to 
you. She looks exactly like you! " 

Marjorie made a difference in our 
way of living. A second-story flat, 
comfortable though it was, was not a 
good place to bring up a little girl. 
More than ever, we needed a home of 
our own. But to need and to provide 
are two different propositions. We 



House a Home 35 

needed a back yard; but back yards 
are expensive; and though news- 
papermen may make good husbands 
they seldom make " good money," 

One evening Mother announced to 
me that she had seen the house we 
ought to have. It had just been com- 
pleted, had everything in it her heart 
had wished for, and could be bought 
for forty-two hundred dollars. The 
price was just forty- two hundred dol- 
lars more than I had ! 

All I did have was the wish to own 
a home of my own. But four years of 
our married life had gone, and I was 
no nearer the first payment on a house 
than when we began as man and wife. 
However, I investigated and found 
that I could get this particular house 
by paying five hundred dollars down 



36 Making the 

and agreeing to pay thirty-five a 
month on the balance. I could swing 
thirty-five a month, but the five hun- 
dred was a high barrier. 

Then I made my first wise business 
move. I went to Julius Haass, presi- 
dent of the Wayne County and Home 
Savings Bank, who always had been 
my friend, and explained to him my 
difficulties. He loaned me that five 
hundred dollars for the first payment 
— I to pay it back twenty-five dollars 
monthly — and the house was ours. 

We had become land owners over- 
night. My income had increased, of 
course; but so had my liabilities. The 
first few years of that new house 
taxed our ingenuity more than once. 
We spent now and then, not money 
which we had, but money which we 



House a Home 37 

were going to get; but it was buying 
happiness. If ever a couple have 
found real happiness in this world we 
found it under the roof of that Lei- 
cester Court home. 

There nearly all that has brought 
joy and peace and contentment into 
our lives was born to us. It was from 
there I began to progress ; it was there 
my publishers found me; and it was 
there little Bud was born to us. We 
are out of it now. We left it for a 
big reason; but we drive by it often 
just to see it; for it is still ours in the 
precious memory of the years we 
spent within its walls. 

Still, in the beginning, it was just 
a house! It had no associations and 
no history. It had been built to sell. 
The people who paid for its construe- 



38 Making the 

tion saw in its growing walls and 
rooftree only the few hundred dollars 
they hoped to gain. It was left to us 
to change that house into a home. It 
sounds preachy, I know, to say that 
all buildings depend for their real 
beauty upon the spirit of the people 
who inhabit them. But it is true. 

A S THE weeks and months slipped 
^^^by, the new house began to soften 
and mellow under Mother's gentle 
touches. The living-room assumed 
an air of comfort; my books now had 
a real corner of their own; the guest- 
chamber — or, rather, the little spare- 
room — already had entertained its 
transient tenants; and as our friends 
came and went the walls caught some- 



House a Home 39 

thing from them all, to remind us of 
their presence. 

I took to gardening. The grounds 
were small, but they were large 
enough to teach me the joy of an in- 
timate friendship with growing 
things. To-day, in my somewhat 
larger garden, I have more than one 
hundred and fifty rosebushes, and 
twenty or thirty peony clumps, and 
I know their names and their habits. 
The garden has become a part of the 
home. It is not yet the garden I 
dream of, nor even the garden which 
I think it will be next year; but it is 
the place where play divides the 
ground with beauty. What Bud 
doesn't require for a baseball dia- 
mond the roses possess. 



40 Making the 

Early one morning in July, Bud 
came to us. Immediately, the char- 
acter of that front bedroom was 
changed. It was no longer just " our 
bedroom;" it was ''the room where 
Bud was born." Of all the rooms in 
all the houses of all the world, there 
is none so gloriously treasured in the 
memories of man and woman as those 
wherein their children have come to 
birth. 

I have had many fine things happen 
to me: Friends have borne me high 
on kindly shoulders; out of the depths 
of their generous hearts they have 
given me honors which I have not de- 
served; I have more than once come 
home proud in the possession of some 
new joy, or of some task accom- 
plished; but I have never known, 



House a Ho??ie 41 

and never shall know, a thrill of hap- 
piness to equal that which followed 
good old Doctor Gordon's brief an- 
nouncement: '' It's a Boy! " 

" It's a Boy! " All that day and the 
next I fairly shouted it to friends and 
strangers. To Marjorie's sweetness, 
and to the radiant loveliness of the 
little baby which was ours for so brief 
a time, had been added the strength 
and roguishness of a boy. 

The next five years saw the walls of 
our home change in character. Finger 
marks and hammer marks began to 
appear. When Bud had reached the 
stage where he could walk, calamity 
began to follow in his trail. Once he 
tugged at a table cover and the open 
bottle of ink fell upon the rug. There 
was a great splotch of ink forever to 



42 Making the 

be visible to all who entered that liv- 
ing-room! Yet even that black stain 
became in time a part of us. We grew 
even to boast of it. We pointed it 
out to new acquaintances as the place 
where Bud spilled the ink. It was an 
evidence of his health and his natural 
tendencies. It proved to all the world 
that in Bud we had a real boy; an 
honest-to-goodness boy who could 
spill ink — and would^ if you didn't 
keep a close watch on him. 

'pHEN CAME the toy period of 
our development. The once tidy 
house became a place where angels 
would have feared to tread in the 
dark. Building blocks and trains of 
cars and fire engines and a rocking 
horse were everywhere, to trip the 



House a Home 43 

feet of the unwary. Mother scolded 
about it, at times; and I fear I my- 
self have muttered harsh things when, 
late at night, I have entered the house 
only to stumble against the tin sides 
of an express wagon. 

But I have come to see that toys in 
a house are its real adornments. 
There is no pleasanter sight within 
the front door of any man's castle 
than the strewn and disordered evi- 
dences that children there abide. The 
house seems unfurnished without 
them. 

This chaos still exists in our 
house today. Mother says I en- 
courage it. Perhaps I do. I know 
that I dread the coming day when 
the home shall become neat and or- 
derly and silent and precise. What 



44 Making the 

is more, I live in horror of the day 
when I shall have to sit down to a 
meal and not send a certain little fel- 
low away from the table to wash his 
hands. That has become a part of the 
ceremonial of my life. When the 
evening comes that he will appear for 
dinner, clean and immaculate, his 
shirt buttoned properly and his hair 
nicely brushed, perhaps Mother will 
be proud of him ; but as for me, there 
will be a lump in my throat — for I 
shall know that he has grown up. 

Financially, we were progressing. 
We had a little more " to do with," 
as Mother expressed it; but sorrow 
and grief and anxiety were not 
through with us. 

We were not to be one hundred per 



House a Home 45 

cent happy. No one ever is. Mar- 
jorie was stricken with typhoid fever, 
and for fourteen weeks we fought 
that battle; saw her sink almost into 
the very arms of death; and watched 
her pale and wasted body day by day, 
until at last the fever broke and she 
was spared to us. 

Another bedroom assumed a new 
meaning to us both. We knew it as 
it was in the dark hours of night; we 
saw the morning sun break through 
its windows. It was the first room I 
visited in the morning and the last I 
went to every night. Coming home, 
I never stopped in hall or living- 
room, but hurried straight to her. All 
there was in that home then was Mar- 
jorie's room! We lived our lives 



46 Making the 

within it. And gradually, her 
strength returned and we were happy 
again. 

But only for a brief time. . 
Early the following summer I was 
called home by Doctor Johnson. 
When I reached there, he met me at 
the front door, smiling as though to 
reassure me. 

*' You and Bud are going to get 
out," said he. '' Marjorie has scarlet 
fever." 

Bud had already been sent to his 
aunt Florence's. I was to gather 
what clothing I should need for six 
weeks, and depart. 

If I had been fond of that home be- 
fore, I grew fonder of it as the days 
went by. I think I never knew how 
much I valued it until I was shut out 



House a Home 47 

from it. I could see Mother and Mar- 
jorie through the window, but I was 
not to enter. And I grew hungry for 
a sight of the walls with their finger 
marks, and of the ink spot on the rug. 
We had been six years in the build- 
ing of that home. Somehow, a part 
of us had been woven into every nook 
and corner of it. 

•pUT MARJORIE was not thriv- 
•"ing. Her cheeks were pale and 
slightly flushed. The removal of ton- 
sils didn't help. Followed a visit to 
my dentist. Perhaps a tooth was 
spreading poison through her system. 
He looked at her, and after a few 
minutes took me alone into his pri- 
vate office. 
'' I'm sorry, Eddie," he said. '' I am 



48 Making the 

afraid it isn't teeth. You have a 
long, hard fight to make — if it is 
what I think it is." 

Tuberculosis had entered our home. 
It had come by way of typhoid and 
scarlet fevers. The specialist eon- 
firmed Doctor Oakman's suspicions, 
and our battle began. The little 
home could serve us no longer. It 
was not the place for such a fight for 
life as we were to make. Marjorie 
must have a wide-open sleeping 
porch; and the house lacked that, nor 
could one be built upon it. 

And so we found our present home. 
It was for sale at a price I thought 
then I should never be able to pay. 
We could have it by making a down 
payment of seventy-five hundred 
dollars, the balance to be covered by 



^ 



House a Home 49 

a mortgage. But I neither had that 
much, nor owned securities for even 
a small fraction of it. 

But I did have a friend : a rich, but 
generous friend! I told him what I 
wanted; and he seemed more grieved 
at my burden than concerned with 
my request. He talked only of Mar- 
jorie and her chances; he put his arm 
about my shoulders, and I knew he 
was with me. 

'' What do you need? " he asked. 

** Seventy-five hundred dollars in 
cash." 

He smiled. 

" Have a lawyer examine the ab- 
stract to the property, and if it is all 
right come back to me." 

In two days I was back. The title 
to the house was clear. He smiled 



50 Making the 

again, and handed me his check for 
the amount, with not a scratch of the 
paper between us. 

I suggested something of that sort 
to him. 

*' The important thing is to get the 
house," he said. *' When that is done 
and you have the deed to it and the 
papers all fixed up, you come back 
and we'll fix up our little matter." 
And that is how it was done. 

So into our present home we moved. 
We had a bigger and a better and a 
costlier dwelling place. We were 
climbing upward. But we were also 
beginning once more with just a 
house. Just a house — but founded 
on a mighty purpose! It was to be- 
come home to us, even more dearly 
loved than the one we were leaving. 



House a Home 51 

For four years it has grown in our 
affections. Hope has been ours. We 
have lived and laughed and sung and 
progressed. . . . But we have 
also wept and grieved. 

Twice the doctor had said we were 
to conquer. Then came last spring 
and the end of hope. Week after 
week, Marjorie saw the sunbeams 
filter through the windows of her 
open porch; near by, a pair of robins 
built their nest; she watched them 
and knew them and named them. 
We planned great things together 
and great journeys we should make. 
That they were not to be she never 
knew. . . . And then she fell 
asleep. . . . 

Her little life had fulfilled its mis- 
sion. She had brought joy and 



52 Making the 

beauty and faith into our hearts; she 
had comforted us in our hours of lone- 
liness and despair; she had been the 
little cheerful builder of our home — 
and perhaps God needed her. 

She continued to sleep for three 
days, only for those three days her 
sun porch was a bower of roses. On 
Memorial Day, Mother and I stood 
once more together beside a little 
mound where God had led us. Late 
that afternoon we returned to the 
home to which Marjorie had taken us. 
It had grown more lovely with the 
beauty which has been ours, because 
of her. 

nn HE HOME is not yet completed. 

We still cherish our dreams of 

what it is to be. We would change 



House a Home 53 

this and that. But, after all, what 
the home is to be is not within our 
power to say. We hope to go forward 
together, building and changing and 
improving it. To-morrow shall see 
something that was not there yester- 
day. But through sun and shade, 
through trial and through days of 
ease and of peace, it is our hope that 
something of our best shall still re- 
main. Whatever happens, it is our 
hope that what may be "just a 
house " to many shall be to us the 
home we have been building for the 
last fifteen years. 



HOME 

By Edgar A. Guest 

It takes a heap o' livin* in a house t* make it 

home, 
A heap o' sun an' shadder, an' ye sometimes 

have t' roam 
Afore ye really 'preciate the things ye lef 

behind, 
An' hunger fer 'em somehow, with 'em alius 

on yer mind. 
It don't make any differunce how rich ye get 

t'be. 
How much yer chairs an' tables cost, how great 

yer luxury; 
It ain't home t' ye, though it be the palace of 

a king. 
Until somehow yer soul is sort o' wrapped 

round everything. 

Home ain't a place that gold can buy or get up 

in a minute; 
Afore it's home there's got t' be a heap o* 

livin' in it ; 
Within the walls there's got t' be some babies 

bom, and then 
Right there ye've got t* bring 'em up t' women 

good, an* men; 
And gradjerly, as time goes on, ye find ye 

wouldn't part 
With anything they ever used— they've grown 

into yer heart: 
The old high chairs, the playthings, too, the 

little shoes they wore 
54 



Ye hoard ; an' if ye could ye'd keep the thumb- 
marks on the door. 

YeVe got t' weep t* make it home, yeVe got t* 
sit an* sigh 

An' watch beside a loved one's bed, an* know 
that Death is nigh; 

An* in the stillness o' the night t* see Death's 
angel come. 

An* close the eyes o* her that smiled, an' leave 
her sweet voice dumb. 

Fer these are scenes that grip the heart, an* 
when yer tears are dried. 

Ye find the home is dearer than it was, an* 
sanctified ; 

An* tuggin* at ye always are the pleasant 
memories 

O' her that was an* is no more — ye can't es- 
cape from these. 

Ye've got t' sing an' dance fer years, ye've got 

t' romp an* play. 
An' learn t' love the things ye have by usin' 

'em each day; 
Even the roses 'round the porch must blossom 

year by year 
Afore they 'come a part o* ye, suggestin' some- 
one dear 
Who used t' love *em long ago, an' trained 

*em jes' t' run 
The way they do, so's they would get the early 

momin' sun; 
Ye've got t' love each brick an' stone from 

cellar up t* dome: 
It takes a heap o* livin' in a house t* make it 

home. 

[From "A Heap 6* Livin' "] 
55 



The Poems of Edgar A. Guest 

are a tremendous influence today in inspiring love 
of home and the family, and helpfulness towards 
one's fellows. 

Edgar Guest has written poems for every need and 
mood, and his verse is making better men and 
women, better fathers and mothers, and better citi- 
zens of a vast army of readers. 

There are now five published Guest books of verse. 
They are — 

A Heap o* Livin' 

Just Folks 

Poems of Patriotism (Over Here) 

The Path to Home 

When Day Is Done 

A sixth book of verse is to be published during 
August, 1922. The title is— 

All That Matters 

This new book will have twenty-one very unusual 
and beautiful illustrations by such noted artists as 
W. T. Benda, M. L. Bower, Pruett Carter, F. X. 
Leyendecker and Robert E. Johnston. 



Every bookseller has all the Edgar Guest books in 
a variety of bindings. 



n% 



